[Sector echocardiographic determination of the diameter of the large arteries of the heart in children].

We determined the end-diastolic and end-systolic diameters of the aortic root, ascending aorta, aortic arch, pulmonary trunk, and right pulmonary artery in infants and children with congenital heart disease by means of two-dimensional echocardiography. These measurements were compared to those obtained by angiocardiography in the same patients. We found an excellent correlation (r = 0.94 to 0.99) with a slope near to 1. In a second study, we measured echocardiographically the end-systolic diameters of the aortic root, ascending aorta, aortic arch, pulmonary trunk and right pulmonary artery in 87 healthy newborns, infants, children and adolescents and correlated these measurements with the body weight. We found a nonlinear correlation with the diameters being best described as a function of the natural logarithm of the body weight. We determined normal ranges containing 90% of all future normal observations with a confidence of 90%. These normal ranges may serve as basis for comparison of measurements of the same diameters in children with heart disease.